Bruno followed a different path to the stake. He was born in Nola, a provincial southern Italian town not much larger than Menocchio’s village, in 1548. In the mid-sixteenth century southern Italy lay in the midst of the Mediterranean and served as a crossroads in the maritime trade network that spanned from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Middle East. While Nola itself was small and largely homogeneous, it was situated a mere thirty miles from the more metropolitan Naples, the fourth most populous city in Europe when Bruno relocated there at the age of seventeen.[1] Consequently, this international exposure revealed to him a world of diverse cultures, languages, and ideas.[2] The various and sometimes incongruous views advocated by Bruno and the particularities of his worldview indicate the influence of both the worldly Naples and the modest Nola. Indeed, Bruno referred to himself as “the Nolan philosopher” throughout his entire scholarly career.[3] In Naples, Bruno entered the Dominican monastery of San Domenico Maggiore, distinguished himself as an outstanding scholar of metaphysics and theology, and proved quite adept in the mnemonic arts. This latter ability established him as an asset to various noblemen across Europe who recognized the practical value of recalling vast amounts of detailed information. Following an accusation that he had promoted anti-Trinitarian ideas and possessed forbidden books, Bruno unceremoniously withdrew from the Dominican Order in 1576 and became a peripatetic scholar who did not reside in one location longer than a few years until his imprisonment in 1592.[4] After nearly two decades of itinerant teaching throughout the scholarly centers of Europe, he returned to Italy in 1591 and was supported by the patronage of Giovanni Mocenigo, a minor Venetian nobleman, who endeavored to learn the secrets of the art of memory from Bruno. Unable to master these arts, Mocenigo suspected Bruno of fraud and denounced him to the Venetian Inquisition for various heresies.[5] Eventually, Bruno was handed over to the less tolerant Roman Inquisition, and after a nearly eight year long trial, Bruno was eventually executed as a heretic in Rome in 1600.
In order to understand Bruno’s ultimate fate, one must understand his transient lifestyle. After he left the Dominican order in 1576, his wanderings took him to several northern Italian towns including Turin, Venice, and Padua (1576-1579). He taught for a short time in Calvinist-controlled Geneva in 1579, traveled to Lyons and Toulouse in 1580-81 where he obtained a degree in theology, and ultimately attached himself to the court of King Henri III in Paris. His most prolific years as a writer came in England (1583-1585) where he made the acquaintance of such luminaries as Sir Philip Sydney and Thomas Digges.[6] Between 1585 and 1592, Bruno lectured on Aristotle and imparted his techniques of memorization in Wittenberg and Prague, after which he returned to Venice where he first encountered difficulties with the Inquisition.[7] In nearly every case, troubles with secular or religious authorities preceded his departures from these locations. Significantly, Geneva, London, and Wittenberg were all major Protestant centers.
How ultra-sensitive to the threat of Lutheranism were Catholic authorities with regard to Bruno and Menocchio? Though there were only incidental parallels, Inquisition authorities suspected both Bruno and Menocchio of following Luther’s teachings based on the testimony of others and their own seemingly non-Catholic behavior. Assigning the label of Lutheran was a convenient way to demonize one’s enemies among Catholics in the sixteenth century regardless of their actual beliefs, and we find both an accusation and a denial in Menocchio’s trial records. When interrogated about Menocchio’s faith, a peasant acquainted with him for more than thirty years replied that “he has a poor reputation, namely that he holds evil opinions following the sect of Luther and frequently I have heard him speak and dispute about matters of faith.”[8] Menocchio later defended himself by asserting that “a Lutheran is one who goes about teaching bad things, and eats meat on Friday and Saturday,” which illustrates that he likely did not even understand what Lutheranism entailed.[9]
When questioned regarding his belief in the power of saints and their relics and images, Menocchio elaborated on tenets similar to Protestant thought: “We should not adore their images but only the one God, who created the heavens and the earth. Don’t you see that Abraham cast down all the idols and all the images and adored only the one God?”[10] Bruno, like Menocchio, was unconvinced of the efficacy of images. During his time as a Dominican monk in Naples, he removed all images of the Madonna, Saint Catherine of Sienna, and other iconic figures from his monk’s cell in San Domenico Maggiore and displayed only a single crucifix on his wall.[11] Significantly, the bishops at the Council of Trent considered the education of the laity concerning the value of the sacraments and saints a priority.
[1] Ingrid Rowland, Giordano Bruno: Philosopher Heretic, 19-24.
[2] Ibid., 22.
[3]Ibid., 14-18. Rowland, deferring to Bruno’s own self-reference as a “Nolan philosopher,” describes his peculiar and difficult to define philosophy as “the Nolan philosophy.” In this way, she gives his beliefs a broader foundation than simply Hermetic, Neoplatonic, or otherwise, and aggrandizes Bruno with his own nominal system.
[4] Ibid., 70-76.
[5] Ibid., 226-229 and 244-245. According to Rowland, the Venetian Inquisition normally did not extradite prisoners to Rome, and Rome generally tolerated this because the wealth and power of Venice protected Rome from its external enemies. However, with the encroachment of Protestantism into northern Italy and Venice’s need for Rome as an ally against the increasingly bellicose Holy Roman Empire, Venice began to more readily defer to Roman religious authority throughout the late sixteenth century.
[6] Digges was also an early proponent of Copernicus.
[7] Ingrid Rowland, Giordano Bruno: Philosopher Heretic, 77-86, 101-103, 113-116, 130-131, 186-187, and 199-222.
[8] Andre del Col, Domenico Scandella Known as Menocchio, 8.
[9] Quoted in Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, 18.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ingrid Rowland, Giordano Bruno: Philosopher Heretic, 30 and 99-100.
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